Hello,A number of quiz bowl players in the state, including Hunter Wotruba from Fisher and myself, want to begin practicing and putting together a team for the next iteration of NASAT. Anyone who is eligible for NASAT and interested is free to come.We will mostly be practicing through Skype. Post here, or message either me or Hunter if you would like to be added to this. You can text 7405036967 for questions.

Sorry for the belated response--Hunter told Tom this, but so everyone else knows:

This is still ongoing, and you can still join if you're interested. This isn't directly associated with those who will pick and pay for the NASAT team for Ohio; but, if you were planning on trying out for NASAT, this is an opportunity to play with your likely teammates on questions of the same difficulty as NASAT.

I actually considered offering my services up as a coach for this, but we have a baseball tournament in Columbus that weekend. I hope whoever plays on the team and whoever coaches it, that all of you do extremely well... we definitely have some potential players that could make up another great Ohio squad.

Team Ohio does not yet have a coach, and we have not yet had any tryouts. I am not sure who will be paying the fees, or deciding who will be coaching or organizing tryouts.

However, for those interested, we are still practicing online up until NASAT. If anyone at all would like to tryout or contribute to the team, please contact either me or Hunter Wotruba, or just post here.

I'm willing to step in and be involved as a coach/advisor for Team Ohio at NASAT. I attended the tournament last year in an informal capacity to support Coach Bergman and follow Ohio B, and I enjoyed the experience. I'm happy to Skype into practices, etc. and coordinate official tryouts. However, I/my program can't offer a significant amount of funding, which I understand is one of the big obstacles.

I will also encourage players from MVS to reach out to you, Clark, about online practices if they haven't already.

1) If NASAT doesn't get five more registrations in the next three weeks, the event is off (per Jacob O'Rourke's post on HSQB.) I'm not the captain of this ship, and I'm not interested in doing anything to help the Team Ohio cause other than being willing to read for tryouts, but given how slowly this process has moved (this really is not anyone's fault, though) it is probably in the best interest of Team Ohio to wait and see if this event is even going to happen before assembling a team.

2) Can we consider in-person tryouts and not Skype? One Saturday, over a few rounds, can knock out what is otherwise necessary to be done over a few school nights. If you play spring sports, then school night tryouts over Skype could be prohibitive. I'm assuming Team Ohio would have probably until, like, late April to figure out a team.

3) Are people legitimately interested in doing this event? Right now,the field is Nevada; Georgia; Maryland A, Maryland B, and Maryland C. If the event field ends up being only a couple different states and a handful of B and C teams, then does that still appeal to the participants from Team Ohio?

Rather than start a new thread, I'll resurrect this one to say that after talking to some folks around the state, I am willing to pick up the banner for tryouts for NASAT and help coach the team. I messaged with Greg today to get his input and obtain emails for the players who had registered for tryouts with him. All those players (or their coaches) have received new info from me as of the time of this post. Read on for said info:

Because it's getting late in the year, all tryouts will take place via Skype/Google Hangouts. There will be no fee charged to try out online. While it's not the same as playing in person, running online seems much easier and will, I hope, not be a logistical problem for those interested in trying out.

To make the final team, you might have to play against different groups of competitors on a couple separate occasions, so please fill out all dates on the form (even if you're marking yourself unavailable). Please use your first and last name when signing up. Everyone who signs up will have at least one tryout. If you are not one of the players who originally signed up with Greg Bossick, I probably do not have your email to coordinate Skype. Please send me an email (tylerDOTbenedictATmvschoolDOTcom) or PM on this forum to give me your contact info after filling out the form, or include it in your form response. Please strive to respond to the availability form before Monday, May 8.

I will keep stats for the tryouts and hopefully find a way to make them accessible to the public in a timely manner. If the tryout process stretches too long, I may have to make some roster decisions without being able to play every possible combination of players against each other. Those decisions will be informed by performance at tryouts and performance throughout the season. I've been lucky enough to read or observe a lot of teams in Ohio this year, and I also plan on getting help and feedback from other coaches, league commissioners, and members of the quiz bowl community. My goal is for all players to have a fun, competitive experience and give every candidate an opportunity to show what they can do.

If you have questions about this process or suggestions about what might help it run more smoothly, please let me know. I can also go into more detail about how Skype quizbowl works, tryout format, etc. if you're curious (just trying to save everyone some reading at the moment). Best of luck to all who choose to participate!

Oy vey. Sorry about that, Hunter. If you or anyone else is having trouble with the link above, you can also just email me or PM with a general idea of availability between May 8-May 24, including weekends. That link again is https://when2meet.com/?6188695-Vbr6G. Thanks to the players who have already filled in the survey, hope to get several more in the coming days!

Here is an update on who has signed up for NASAT tryouts so far. Coaches and players: if you/someone you know has indicated interest in trying out for Team Ohio but does not appear on this list, contact me or have them fill out the form linked above (then contact me if the form doesn't work). I would like to close sign-ups by 11:59 PM tomorrow, then I will send info to players and post on the forum about schedule for Skype sessions. Candidates so far, in alphabetical order by last name:

To organize tryouts, I first seeded all players based on a combination that included power percentage on IS sets played this year, power percentage on housewrites played this year, points per tossup heard, and (least important) scouting reports/the "eye test." I privileged power percentage as a stat because at NASAT, deep knowledge in one or two subjects is advantageous compared to a generalist who might score a lot of points for their school team, but not ring in until the last line of a question. I realize that the power percentage stat gives an advantage to people who are already specialists on their own team, since they aren't called on to answer as many questions, but I tried to adjust for that bias in the final seeding.

The seeding went out the window a little bit, though, when it came to player availability, so I ended up going with the most reasonable groups available. Here is the format for the tryouts:

The top four individual seeds, who are Clark, Hari, Hunter, and John John, were given a pass to the second/final stage of tryouts. This is both in recognition of their demonstrated performance during this season and also to improve the tryout experience for the entire field. This is similar to how Greg was going to let any players who had qualified for NASAT before go directly to the final Columbus tryout. The remaining players will try out in the following groups on the following dates:

Some people will play twice, but I felt this was preferable to having a room of fewer than five people trying out at a time. I will track statistics in each round: powers, 10s, total points, points per tossup heard, and buzzpoint (that is, I will mark on my copy of the questions where a player buzzed in correctly. This will help differentiate between a power after five words and a power right before the asterisk). I will also be keeping track of what category each question is in, and who is doing better in each category. The factors that matter most in the preliminary rounds will be powers, points per tossup heard (important since tossups heard will vary!), and subject-area strength. After observing the results of these preliminary tryout rounds, 4 of the 11 candidates will be chosen to advance to the next and final rounds of tryouts against 3 of the top 4 seeds. The schedule for those rounds is listed below:

Stats from these rounds will be studied and decisions will be made, with the following mitigating factor: Hunter W. is not listed in these tryout rounds because his availability did not line up with any convenient times for the rest of the group (end of the year is busy for a senior!). This does not mean he will not be given a tryout, nor does it mean he automatically makes the team...I'm holding out hope that after the two final tryout rounds are concluded, we can work Hunter in with the remaining group, see how it goes, and decide on final roster composition. Andrew Z. was also a tough schedule, so the May 13 tryout round was constructed to make sure he got a time. I don't say this to call those two out or to imply that they got some kind of special treatment, but to give some insight into why the schedule is how it is and to point out that I didn't forget about Hunter. Another factor that drove the schedule for tryouts was my own obligations...I'll be taking Miami Valley's middle school team to MSNCT in Dallas this weekend, so I had to work around that. The May 13 tryout round will start after we're done with Saturday rounds at MSNCT, and I'll either run it from the hotel or enlist help.

Sorry for the long explanation, but I wanted to be as transparent as possible. Emails are being sent to individual players and coaches with the above format, as well as instructions for how to actually connect online when the tryout comes around. Let me know if you have any feedback!

As far as I know, because of funding, etc., we are only fielding one team. (Someone please let me know if this is incorrect!). I anticipate that we will carry six players on the roster, as with last year's Ohio A. When all tryout rounds are concluded, I will post the six-person lineup, as well as a list of alternates in order. If any of the six main-roster players are not able to accept their spots, the vacancy will be offered to alternate 1, then alternate 2, and so on. Thanks for your question and for your interest in representing Ohio at NASAT!

Tommy Varley (Copley) emailed last night to register for tryouts, which Josh had told me he would probably do. Since Tommy has been named to a NASAT team before and would be right around a top-four seed anyway, I've decided to place him in the two final rounds on May 23 and 24. The scheduling post above has been edited to reflect this.

Looking at the people trying out as a whole, no matter who makes it, Team Ohio is going to be LOADED with solid qb players. I'm not familiar with all of those trying out but there are a ton of underclassmen, which is also really cool.

No...the top four seeds aren't automatically on the team, they just have a fast-track to the final. The prelims cut the field down to eight (nine with Hunter), and then those nine are in the mix for the final six spots. It could play out that one or more of the four fast-track players is outperformed, either in a key category or overall, and they do not make the end roster. (This is also why I want to see that final group play at least two separate days, to try and get a little more data). Thanks for your question, I'm sorry for not making that clearer!

An email about tryouts has been sent to players and coaches. This email includes instructions for about how we will connect on Skype as well as a recap of the schedule and format.

I do not have email addresses for Arvind Nair (Hyatts), Ruarai O'Tighearnaigh (Liberty), Jason Wright (Black River), or Andrew Zhang (Jerome). Coaches or players, please send those along to me as soon as possible.

Josh Smith of Clermont Northeastern contacted me...he was still under the impression that there was an in-person tryout, but he has now been added to the group trying out on May 21. The scheduling post has been updated to reflect this new signup.

Frank Zhu of Brecksville-Broadview Heights has filled out the availability form and been added to the field. His tryout will be Sunday, May 21. Because of the additions of Josh and Frank, Nitish will no longer have to have a second session on Sunday. These changes have been made to the scheduling post above.

Emails with a Skype conversation link have been sent to all players scheduled to try out on 5/13 that provided an email (Andrew, I still don't have your email...check your forum messages if you see this). We will start as close to 8:00 Eastern as possible.

So, first of all, the tryout on Saturday happened! Thanks to all players for making the time. I have stats recorded on paper, and am in the process of transferring them to a spreadsheet that I can post.

There is a tryout tonight at 7:00 for Enoch, Arvind, Pranav, Nayan, and Jason.

The "% category" statistic keeps track of what percentage of available lit tossups, science tossups, etc., a player got. So if a player heard 10 literature tossups and got 5 of them in their room, their % Lit would be 5/10, or 50%. Because of dead questions, percentages may not always add to 100. I have also been keeping track of buzzpoint for questions (i.e. marking where a player got a question right), but that hasn't come into play much yet when it comes to separating players and I haven't taken the time to list it on a spreadsheet numerically as a stat.

We have completed three rounds of NASAT tryouts. In the interest of staying on track, I want to try to progress to the next stage tomorrow and Wednesday as scheduled.

Although originally I said only 4 would move on to the next round, I thought it made more sense to take the top 2 players for every distribution category. That means that Andrew, Pranav, Enoch, Frank, Jason, and William will advance to the next round.

This gets the top four scorers by PPTUH (Andrew, Pranav, William, and Frank) into the field while still recognizing Enoch's performance in science specialist and Jason's in fine arts.

Because having 5 auto-qualifiers plus 6 prelim qualifiers plus a moderator is too much of a load for Skype, I want to split the field of prelim qualifiers and have half try out tomorrow and half try out Wednesday. New fields are below:

Both Frank and Andrew listed themselves as unavailable for both the 23rd and 24th at the beginning of the month, but I'm hoping with a little notice they can make the time to be available on Wednesday evening.

The split groups were mostly arranged with specialty in mind, in that the qualifiers from prelims were consciously placed with other players who were near them in the category standings (this is why Pranav has been placed twice, as he was close to both William and Andrew).

At this juncture, I want to thank all the candidates again for trying out for Team Ohio. These players are a pleasure to work with, and for those players still in the mix I look forward to reading for you again!

I know who the top four are based on stats, but I still don't know if we are even taking a B team or who that B team would be. Are we having two alternates per team? Because Hari, Andrew, and I practically tied in history, how does that work?

Hi everyone. I apologize for being so late. Emails have been sent to all who tried out for NASAT with more detailed information about the tournament, but we have officially sent in our application, rosters, etc., so the tournament directors are aware we are attending. Here are the rosters based on qualification (names in alphabetical order):

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